America's Energy Crisis and the Solution

In a world where fossil fuels are at its most finite, greater emphasis must be put on renewables and trying to shift this reliance on oil and gas and in doing so reduce the environmental implications. If one country springs to mind as being must culpable for this perilous position we find ourselves in, it is the USA. The Kyoto Protocol signed in 1997 was designed specifically to curb this, however the USA were not keen to oblige and to this day have not signed. The USA is the second largest consumer of energy in the world after China, due to its recent emergence one can understand China being top in this respect. The same can be said in terms of CO2 emmisions also, with the top 2 once again being the USA and China. This has only changed in the last decade however, throughout the 20th century the USA remained on top of these charts for largely the entire time.

It is quite startlingly to think that the country that have most likely caused this consumption in energy are not willing to curb supplying demand as they do in order to protect the world we live in.

America however has still continued its search for oil taking to the Artic and Canadian Tar Sands in particular in order to capture oil to supply demand not only in the states but worldwide. Although this is a positive as it reduces the need for the USA to enter conflict in other areas around the world, it is still not a real resolution to the problem
(Canadian Tar Sands)

However recently American's have realised their over consumption and the need to protect the environment, individuals along with non to profit orgs such as Greenpeace have contracted projects in order to tackle the issue. The state of Montana ranks ninth in the country in per capita energy consumption  but most of Montana's energy dollars are literally going up in smoke. As a result the state has recently turned to its renewable energy supply of solar energy, georthermal, wind and biomass. Such wide scale schemes are predicted to have a huge impact on the state on the whole for example it has been projected that in the next two decades totals 416 MW, enough to power more than 400,000 homes will be generated through geothermal energy alone, with many more sites planned to be built in the coming years.


 Similarly in terms of biomass, the wasted biomass each year of 2.5 million tons can be devoted to producing cellulose ethanol, the state could churn out more than 100 million gallons of bio fuels each year, equivalent to one-fifth of all the gasoline used in Montana. These statistics from the NRDC (Natural Resource Defence Council) highlight the effect the switch to renewable's could have in the USA. Bare in mind this is just from one of 50 states, nationwide application could have positive implications worldwide.